[Community Game]: Describe the game's flight model.

[Retroboy]

This poll assumes that propellors or turbines provide the source of movement power, and antigravity only provides lift. (Note - in option 4, props mounted on a gimbal would provide complete 3d movement)

(Vij and incarnate get the credit for spawning this question in a Gallery thread.)

NOTE: POLL OPTION 3 IS INCORRECTLY PHRASED - SHOULD BE
"Wings are very small as antigravity provides most lift. Air resistance provides most directional control of the craft when speeds are high, but fighters can almost hover. Some sideways strafing is possible."
Moderator adjustment requested. :)

-- Retro

[FluxX]

Yes, I would agree with a mix of 2 and 3.

2 for the early/low tech and weak ships. 3 for the elite craft.

Just because I want to see a giant cap ship with rudders everywhere ;D

[dukes]

Not certain if this should go here or in the grav drive science thread, but meh.

OK, so this is just an idea. If individual drives have already been decided on then just ignore this.
Hmmmm, just thinking about this, I can think of a more interesting system possibly. How about make it so the drives are stupidly large (i.e. 20metres in diameter/length) and so can only be mounted on battleships or cities. However, have it so it affects anything in its radius made out of the proper material, so that a fighter near a battleship can fly on the battleships grav drive power (using its own power only to manouver), but further away has to use all its own power and so loses its manouverability a lot. The basis for the technology is the same for both sides, however, so if you can fly near your own battleship, you can fly near enemy battleships too. Would mean a more interesting game-play mechanic, as you have to manage your battleships to make your fighters more effective, but its the fighters who actually do the damage and are the interesting part flying-wise. This centres gameplay around the battleships too, so that they can be used as objectives easily. You could even have these grav "cores" mounted on the ground, near vital objectives, so that defence of them becomes more interesting.
Or another take could be that the grav core merely amplifys the fighters drives, so that they can still fly about, but at reduced manouverability. If you actually changed it so that grav cores have different "frequencies" or something, so that friendly or enemy drives are different, then the defender would have the advantage.
Bleh, just throwing out ideas really :P

As to flight model, I voted for the 3rd one of the options. I like the Freelancer model, as its simple but still very effective, and (as far as i can tell) thats the option closest, as it turns the flight model into more like a space sim rather than a flying sim. If you think of it, it would basically be a space sim but with a ground.

[Moe]

Having the fighters ride on the cap ships drive sounds like a good idea. The closer to the ship, the more lift they get. With increasing distance, lift is reduced, until the planes become "regular planes". This means they can pull crazy stunts in close proximity to ships and cities, both enemy and friendly, but have to resort to regular flight maneuvers when far away. The advantage is that when you go up against a cruiser, you can evade its turrets a lot better, hence the need for fighter cover.

[Beelzebuddy]

Voted for option 1, solely because the logical extensions of option 3 would result in planes that look nothing like WW2 fighters, losing the steampunk feel of it. Option 2 would also be acceptable.

[Koki]

It's not steampunk anymore, IIRC :) Now it's dirty-diesel-punk.

[Moe]

I demand Greenpeace as a playable faction.

[Hablacraja]

Nah, the game would become unbalanced as soon as one researched "Just Push Those Idiots Off The Side Of The Boat" tech.

[Retroboy]

So would the boat.

-- Retro

[oneredpanther]

keke.

[Jaen-ni-rin]

It's a transition between option 2 & 3.
On low altitude ship is behaving like 3 and on medium and high altitude like 2.
In FPS flight mode player can switch between options.

And considering big ships, anti-gravity unit can't create such big eee... gravity field to move it. But instead of this big ships gets something called AGFP Engine (short form Accelerated Generator Fuel Particle Engine). Because of that, the high energy particles in anti-gravity generator mustn't be in it for too long (longer they stay there, more energy they have, more dangerous they are an so on), they are exhausted in special vent. But there is still a lot of them left. So you can use it for moving and powering the ship (like eee... non-contaminating nuclear plant).
This is working like this:
Big ship is just floating in the air, anti-gravity isn't able to move such a big ship, so it uses AGFPE. Right ?

Ship with these engines (tihs Taidanii painted):

http://www3.telus.net/robster7/vws1%5b1%5daaronModOverpaint%20copy.jpg

See here for more details of this idea and idea of putting it in-game. (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=29496)

[A176]

What the heck is all this? No need to discuss the science behind actually flying IMO...just how the player does this with his or her peripherials.


Wings are very small as the plane gets the majority of its lift from the antigravity unit. Air resistance doesn't really play much part in the game, and fighters can actually strafe to the right or left under the right circumstances.I recommend something like this, considering the already wackiness of the antigrav unit. Fly like a normal plane, but add in spinning and strafing and craziness.

[Ammon Ra]

agreed, drop the science for a change, and think about how you'd like your fighters/bombers/heavy bombers ect to move.

There is the question of wheather fighters would have AG devices at all, considering that they'd need quite a lot of power -hence diesel- to power them.

Option 1 would be silly though, why would you want to play the game then? giant floating ships? the twist is given by the AG. But too much ^would alienise the controls and learning curve. Thus i vote for a mixture.

simply put: the AG engine requires alot of power, and therefore drinks more diesel when it gets turned on. The benifits are that aircraft are faster, more manouverable, lighter, and can pull off things that would rip modern planes apart. So we leave it up to the imaginative player when s/he/it wants to fly like a plane and when s/he/it wants to fly like a flying saucer... :D

my :2cents: :)

[Moe]

We have discussed this in the science thread already, and with the exception of Jaen have pretty much all agreed on avoiding awkward and impossible pseudo-physics. The damn things work, period. Nobody knows why.

[Jaen-ni-rin]

After some thinking about this thing I agree too with not using 'pseudo - psychics'. It would be realy strange indeed.

[Artoo]

like some who posted before I'm leaning towards the mixture of options 2 and 3, but the fun factor should prevail above all else as it has been suggested...

[Ammon Ra]

Early "ww2" planes would be along the lines of option 2, but later, more advanced, planes would go along option 3 more? maybe?

Remember that the ww2 was won rightly b/c a new fighter plane was developed -spitfighter- that had the range to escort the bombers. thus new plane types with improved efficiency and stat's should come along as this mental game progresses :p.

[Moe]

Wasn't it called Spitfire?
I would just love to see biplanes in this, they have a distinct old-school feel to them.

[Jaen-ni-rin]

Remember that the ww2 was won rightly b/c a new fighter plane was developed -spitfighter- that had the range to escort the bombers. thus new plane types with improved efficiency and stat's should come along as this mental game progresses

Not only Spitfire, what about P-47 Thunderbolt and especially P-51 Mustang, thet've escorted a lot too. Hmm...

[Caesar]

If anyone has played Crimson Skies, that is how the flight model should be.

[incarnate]

hmm....we have to get off the ww2 wagon. according to the game it doesnt happen. research could go an entirely diff way. bi planes and their descendants could still be the dominant. i agree to a point that we should ignore science, but it would be nice to at least say the REASON the planes look like this is because... If we say that the AG devices provide lift based on power output, but the plane can still use its wings for lift doesnt make sense.

i think we either need to revise the fighter ag stuff or drop it all together as mentioned. cap ships of course need it and its easy b/c they dont bank. but fighters are a totally different story. AG, depending on the decision of how it allows the movement of the plane, could be pointless or awesome. an idea i had to solve this was to keep wings, merely as looks but adding props that are contained in a spherical case and can "pivot" in different directions to apply thrust to turn the plane. this would still allow for manuvering/banking like a fighter, forward and/or multidirectional thrust, as well as a kick-ass diesel-punk type style. i'll draw up some quick sketch stuff tonight to show the idea better.

but the fighter riding on cap ship drives takes away from gameplay. it means that every mission there has to be a cap ship from both sides, or the planes revert to "our" world flight. just some food for thought.